Nori watches Kíli closely as autumn begins to roll in. While her attention is split between monitoring the rumours about Dís' departure and her own preparations for her upcoming nuptials, it does not mean that she stops watching over her youngest lad. She is not the only one; Fíli, Thorin, and Dwalin are doing the same, and so she is not alone in thinking that Kíli is being too bright, too cheerful, too full of mischief and too quick to drag Fíli away from his duties when his brother is struggling. With Dís out of town Kíli seems to have fallen back on being exactly what the people expect him to be; flighty and irresponsible.
There are moments, however, when he is in Nori's little house when she can see that he is struggling with the drastic change that has occurred in recent months. Moments where Kíli is unusually morose and it makes concern coil deep inside her. Ultimately, after telling Thorin that she thinks it is necessary that Kíli get away for a while by checking up on some of her contacts, she sends him off to the Shire to spend the winter with Briar.
"Do you want to see your lass or not?" Nori asks him when Kíli objects to being sent away.
"Of course I do!" He argues. "But Fíli needs me and we need to keep an eye on what's going on with Dís' leaving! I thought you needed me."
"I do need you, lad," she assures him, putting her hand on his shoulder and pulling him close enough that she can tap his head with hers. "But you need to spend time with Briar more. She's good for you, and I think you need to get away from all of this mess and come back to it all in the spring. You're right in the middle of it all, and you're trying but it's all wearing on you. If you didn't have your brother and Thorin I'm willing to bet you'd already have been in the Shire with her so why are you fighting me on it?" He turns wide eyes on her and a few things slot into place. "I'm not sending you away," she breathes. "I promise you, if you really don't want to go I won't force it," although she might have to go to the Shire herself and drag Briar back by her pointed ears, "I'm just worried about you. I want you to go somewhere you can just be for a while. Be with the lass you love for a bit without all the rest eating at you."
"You really think I should?"
"Lad, if I can swing it, I'll have you spending every winter with her," Nori promises, "so long as you're back for the end of spring. Pack your bags and get your arse on the road."
He darts off towards the room he keeps in the house, before pausing and turning to her with a bright, if slightly teary, grin.
"Thank you, Aunt," he breathes.
She watches him leave with a tight knot in her chest. Dís will be a little over two thirds of the way to the Iron Hills now, being five months into what is usually a nine month journey following the main caravan routes which were deemed safer. Thorin had argued for a long while about the possibility of sending her via the High Pass, but that path is old and long disused, and the routes through Khazad-dûm have been long lost. There are other passes over the mountains, of course, but there are limits to what Thorin was willing to put his sister through and Nori does not blame him. The caravan routes will be safer, especially if Balin can join up with a caravan headed north when the time comes.
Winter blows through cold and miserable in the open parts of town, and Nori and Dwalin begin to put some work into looking for the house which they will call their married home. While neither of them is in any particular rush to finalise things, Dori's meticulous lists of people to see and things to organise are already starting to wear on both of them. Nori, naturally, already has her gift of wealth ready for the ceremony, as well as the bead which Dwalin will wear to symbolise their union. The rest is equally as symbolic. The home, these days, is usually a house that the couple have either signed a rental agreement on together or purchased together, occasionally they have even built it with one another. Defense involves the exchange of preferred weapons and is usually seen as a way of showing just how familiar one participant is with the others fighting style. Nori already knows that she will use the hand-axe Dwalin gave her so many years ago; cleaned, sharpened and with their joined symbols intertwined upon the axe-head. There really is not that much else for them to prepare except a guest list and feast.
Besides, with Balin away for the next year at least, they cannot reasonably set a date and Nori refuses to push for it. It will be a small ceremony anyway and while she might see if she can get Kíli to bring Briar back from the Shire in time for it, the hobbit is the only one that Nori wants there for her own sake other than her brothers and Kíli. Anyway, the smaller the better when it comes to keeping her true identity and position quiet.
In the meantime, she sends Galen to once again join with the caravans heading to the Iron Hills, asking him to put together a detailed map of the route and how close they pass to the various other settlements and major landmarks on that side of the Misty Mountains. She has a vague plan for after they cross through the High Pass and, assuming things happen roughly the same way, she will need to know how close the caravans come to Lake Town to see if she can sort out a hidden cache of weapons and coin nearby. She has a horrible feeling that the caravan will not come close enough unless she sends someone there specifically and it is a frustrating thought. Galen is trustworthy, however, and Throrin will put a call out to people to join him on the quest about eighteen months before they actually depart.
Such an undertaking is not something that can be done on a whim. The recovery of the Arkenstone would be a monumental undertaking, and will require careful planning regardless of the fact that Nori knows how it will go. The council will need to be informed and prepared, the Company will need to gather what supplies and equipment that they might need. It is not something where Thorin can simply ask them to meet him at the gate in a week if they wish to join him in search of glory and a share of a dragon's treasure hoard. Nori and Kíli can leave town almost on a whim, but the caravans are planned meticulously, even if it is the same plan over and over. Kíli and Nori can stop off in one of the roadside lodges and pick up supplies when they need them when passing through a village, or even forage for or hunt down their dinner should they run out of travel rations. For a group of maybe six dwarves this is perfectly fine and they can take off as and when they choose. A larger group, however, makes this path more difficult in Nori's experience. Villages can spare food for one or two, especially one or two who have the coin and the inns often have rooms for a handful of travellers too, but they cannot often spare food for more than that. A large group need to know where they will resupply, have the funds on hand to pay for it and at least some idea of the route that they are going to take and the amount of time they should spend on it. It is easier to scavenge food for one or two people than it is to do so for ten or more.
Something which the quest gave Nori the chance to experience first hand.
Nor is her certainty that Thorin will put the call out eighteen months or so before they leave Ered Luin speculation. She remembers it clearly because, for all her faults, Dís was not the only one to question Thorin's sanity upon his declaration that he was making an attempt on Erebor; Nori and Dwalin had asked the questions too. She has time to set herself up, but she also knows that time will vanish rapidly now with only a little over four years to go before they are due to depart. In fact, it is startling to think that nearly ten years have gone by since she fell into the past.
Yule passes quietly, with only a bedraggled and exhausted raven carrying confirmation from Balin of his party's arrival in the Iron Hills, and his assurances that he will begin his return once the worst of winter has passed, to break the general monotony of day to day life. Even Fíli's birthday, a few weeks later, passes with far less of the usual pomp and circumstance of the parties that his mother has thrown in the past. Not that Fíli seems to mind at all, secreting himself away for a couple of days to work on some project or another. Nori periodically visits Bifur, not just for updates on the progress of her commission, although it is nice to see how it is progressing. Bifur has a sharper mind than his inability to speak in anything other than Iglishmêk and the most ancient forms of Khuzdul would cause one to believe. He sees and hears a great deal given that he is often ignored other than the stares that come when people see the orcish axe still lodged in his skull for the first time. Such observations are useful, even if only passed on as gossip. In seeing Bifur she also runs into Bofur and, once or twice, Bombur as well. She limits her interactions with them as much as she can, but with the quest approaching she finds herself longing for the comfort of close friends once again. What had once seemed so far away is now almost unbearably close.
Kíli returns coated in the mud and wet of the early spring roads. He is exhausted from travel and takes himself to bed almost immediately, but when he emerges the following morning there is little sign of the hollow expression and lack of sleep which had hung around him before Nori sent him to the Shire. Time with Briar has done him good and Nori is relieved to see it. She has worried, more than once over the winter, that she may have made the wrong choice in sending him away, no matter how much Dwalin has tried to reassure her. She had promised herself that she would not send Kíli to the Shire, she wanted him to ask to go for himself, but having realised that he would never ask she had sent him to the hobbit instead and has spent the winter worrying that Kíli will feel that she has decided to cast him aside as well. Instead the smile he gives her reaches his eyes, the hollowness of his cheeks has been filled by rich hobbit food, his carefully trimmed beard is thick and well cared for and his shoulders are somehow broader again than they had been when he left.
She realises that the Kíli of her last life probably never fully filled out.
"Good visit?" She asks him and watches with great amusement as his face flares scarlet. "Feel better for it?"
"Yes, Aunt," he almost whispers. Then he frowns. "How did you know it was what I needed?"
"Not difficult to see how you feel about her," Nori reminds him, "and you needed to be away from all the reminders. You'll be seeing your brother later?"
"You don't mind?"
"We're hardly run off our feet, lad," she shakes her head. "You don't need to impress me," she adds quietly after looking him over. "I've been impressed since the day we met and so proud of who you've grown into since. Realised while you were away that I don't tell you that enough."
It takes her by surprise when Kíli leaps from his chair and flings his arms around her. Nori freezes for a moment then wraps him in hers, squeezing a little.
"Go and see your brother," she whispers, "he's missed you. And keep your ear to the ground, we haven't had any problems but you never know."
A.N: I only have a month until my studying starts up again (when I will need to be doing 50-60 hours a week to keep up) Bet this won't be finished by then! It's supposed to be, but I bet it won't.